CAMPAIGNERS wearing the white rose of Yorkshire demonstrated outside the High Court in London yesterday at the start of a legal challenge against North Yorkshire County Council giving the go-ahead to fracking.

The Tory-controlled council rode roughshod over the wishes of thousands of residents and local councils by giving fracking company Third Energy permission to begin drilling in unspoiled countryside in Ryedale.

Residents from the village of Kirby Misperton and Friends of the Earth (FoE) made a landmark joint application for the decision to be quashed.

Lead campaigners the Rev Jackie Cray and David Davis gathered with other rose-carrying demonstrators holding placards outside the court demanding: “Protect our health — Say no to fracking.”

The Frack Free Ryedale campaigners have raised more than £7,000 to fund their application for a judicial review of the decision. Frack Free Ryedale and FoE solicitor Rowan Smith said the campaigners believed the county council’s decision was “clearly unlawful” because the authority had failed to consider the effect that burning shale gas obtained by fracking would have on climate change and had also failed to impose a financial bond on Third Energy to pay for any environmental damage.

The application was opposed by Ryedale District Council, every Ryedale town council, 15 parish councils, businesses such as Flamingo Land, the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the Castle Howard Estate, and dozens of other groups and businesses.

The county council received 4,375 objections to the application and only 36 letters in favour.

FoE’s Yorkshire and Humber campaigner Simon Bowens said: “North Yorkshire County Council failed in their legal duty to fully assess the impact this fracking application would have on the climate and in protecting their local communities against long-term financial risks.

“‘We can’t afford to allow the fracking industry to just go on putting communities across the world at risk by developing a new dirty fossil fuel.”

Across the Pennines, Lancashire County Council refused planning permission for fracking operations, but its decision was simply overridden by the Department for the Environment.